


Las Virgenes

by itstonedme



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the pirate prompt, Orlijah_Month <a href="http://orlijah-month.livejournal.com/133447.html">on LJ</a>, January 2011.  Orlando is 20, Elijah 16.</p><p>Disclaimer: A work of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Las Virgenes

_Caribbean, 1619_

 

In thick Castilian, the order was given. "Orlando, take him below and see to his comfort."

Elijah glanced at the captain, if "captain" could be what one called the filth and dishevelment that seemed in charge of the leering vermin hovering about the ship's rail they'd just hoisted him over, and he panted out his thanks. To be delivered into the hands of a marauding band of pirates after clinging to a reef-bitten plank for the better part of two days -- well, his fortune had always been God's joke.

As he gasped, hands on his knees, staring at the rocking deck, a pair of scuffed black boots filled his vision. Elijah looked up at a sun-baked face split by a gold and ivory smile and had only enough time to curse inwardly before the seaman reached out and spun him, grabbing both arms roughly from behind amid the snickers of the crew. A tongue slid a trail through the salt water droplets on his neck.

"Orlando," the captain warned. "Do not molest him. Bring him to me after we break our dinner." 

A knee pressed up into Elijah's wet breeches, and he was frog-marched toward the doorway of the quarterdeck. "Mind your head," he was told as they passed from brilliant sunlight into the swirling ink of a shuttered corridor. When they came upon one of the well-appointed officer's quarters, the door was booted open, and he was flung into the room.

Elijah surveyed the cabin, then fixed his gaze on his captor. "You seized this ship," he spat out, all thanks and fear forgotten.

"We did," Orlando agreed, walking to a nearby washstand and pouring a goblet of water. He held it out. "Save your disdain. You're a sea rat like the rest of us, only worse paid." 

Elijah thirstily drained the cup in one draught, holding it out for another. 

"Let that first settle," Orlando told him, passing him a wet cloth that he'd soaked in the wash basin. "Here. Wipe the salt from you." He turned and opened a wooden chest, sorting through the cotton and linen garments within until he'd pulled from them a shirt and new pair of breeches. "Change into these." He tossed them onto the small bed beneath the porthole. "What is your name?" 

"Elijah." Unbuttoning the thin shirt clinging wetly to his back, Elijah turned away, and Orlando snorted at the modesty, and took a seat by the door.

"What is your story, Elijah?" By his own reckoning, the lad couldn't be more than sixteen years, if that.

"Our ship was an argosy trader, bound from Cuidad de Puerto Rico to Trinidad, only two nights out of port when the seas ran foul and we wrecked upon the reefs east of Las Virgenes." Elijah spoke over his shoulder, his cheeks flushing, and he curled himself inwards, away from Orlando's bemused grin. The wet breeches hit the floor with a plop, and he hastily wiped himself and stepped into those that he took up from the bed.

To Orlando, Elijah's shyness was only further proof of his youth. "How many years are you?" he asked, eyes running up the pale, skinny frame that broke into a mantle of sunburn at the shoulders.

"Eighteen," Elijah asserted, turning, chin defiantly high. 

"You lie."

Elijah's nostrils flared and his eyes blazed, and even the past long days in death's grip didn't diminish the fighting spirit of a young man alone in a dangerous world. "Those words could see you killed in other circumstances."

"Yes, well, they nearly have," Orlando waved off. "And by bigger and more lethal foes than this scrap of driftwood I see before me, plucked from the brine."

Elijah glanced sideways, eyes narrowed. "I can no more help my size and disposition than you can help being a scurvied ass."

Orlando whooped and slapped his thighs. "You are a feisty scruff, I'll give you that." He flicked his hand so that Elijah might resume his dressing. "And your ship's crew?" he asked. "What became of them?"

"They travelled with the currents and God. I do not know." Elijah's emotionless reply was not something either of them noticed, such were their lot and times.

"And what did the argosy carry?"

Elijah glanced up at Orlando. "I will speak of these things to the captain." It mattered not to him that his vessel had borne mainly sugar and cottons and a chest of ducats that purchased the goods of the return trip. But his value to the captain was in what he could personally relate and reveal, and he wasn't about to impart it to a cocksure deckhand with a lecherous eye. 

"I venture you were the swab," Orlando smiled, squinting against the beam of sunlight that cut through the room as the ship turned on the wave. "That is, if they let you out of the bilge." He hadn't enjoyed a good jesting sport for many weeks, and this young man was too primed not to pluck.

"I'll have you know I was a rigger," Elijah said, tying the stays at his neck. "And you," he sniffed. "The cook? Or do pirates even assign posts?"

"We do," Orlando said politely. "Quartermaster."

Elijah looked at him, saying nothing, for even on a pirate ship, the role of quartermaster was not to be trifled with.

"You should rest," Orlando said, satisfied that he had learned enough to later inform his conversation with the captain, and he motioned to the bed. "We dine at the second bell. Rest until then."

Elijah inched back upon the coverlet, eyes upon Orlando, not forgetting his abuse on deck nor the liberty taken with his person. He stole a glimpse out the porthole, then glanced back. Orlando had tipped his head back against the wall, eyes still on Elijah. "Sleep," Orlando mouthed, and closed his own eyes.

But sleep could not come easy to one who had drifted in fear of it for two days, and each time Elijah's eyes fell shut, he felt the ocean close around him, and he would open them with a gasp.

"Do I need to sing a lullaby?" Orlando asked from the other side of the room.

Elijah refused to reply, determined that he would feign slumber if it meant stifling the chatter and attention of the irksome quartermaster. And with effort and by concentrating on the ship's movement, by imagining how the massive hull held him safe and how the tick and cord of bedding braced him, he began to drift towards sleep...

only to jerk awake with a shout.

Orlando, head still resting against the wall, looked back at him.

"It is nothing," Elijah said breathlessly, easing himself again to the bed, the hammering of his heart soughing within his head. He turned toward the porthole so that he might stare at the sea and deny himself sleep, which now, as he lay on the bed, the better part of him so desperately wanted. His hand crept to the wall so that he might feel its dry firmness.

He heard boots behind him on the floor, and then the narrow bed dipped and gave way. 

"What are you doing?" he cried, sitting up as Orlando lay himself down beside him. "You heard the captain. You are not to molest me!"

"And I will not," Orlando sighed, crossing his booted ankles and draping an arm over his eyes to block the light. "But neither you nor I will rest otherwise, I suspect, if I do not tuck you in."

"I need no putting to bed like a child," Elijah hissed. "You mock me, sir."

Orlando lifted his hand. The late afternoon sun broke around the young man, throwing shadows onto his flushed and burned cheeks. "Be what it may, Elijah. I merely fulfill my order to see to your comfort."

"My comfort would be better served with you there, by the door."

"Your comfort will be better served when you realize you have been returned to life, Elijah, and sleep. I will not abuse you, despite what you may think and I may want." Orlando dropped his arm over his eyes again. 

Elijah gave the quartermaster his back and returned to stare out upon the sea, and in time, as Orlando's breathing slowed and deepened behind him, his own lids fluttered shut, so that he might sleep the rest of one saved.


End file.
